Part 16 (2/2)
”What do you want here?” asked Boges. ”I have something for the prince Bartja.”
”For Bartja? Has he asked your master to send him some seeds or slips?”
The boy shook his sunburnt head and smiled roguishly.
”Some one else sent you then?” said Boges becoming more attentive.
”Yes, some one else.”
”Ah! the Egyptian has sent a message to her brother-in-law?”
”Who told you that?”
”Nitetis spoke to me about it. Here, give me what you have; I will give it to Bartja at once.”
”I was not to give it to any one but the prince himself.”
”Give it to me; it will be safer in my hands than in yours.”
”I dare not.”
”Obey me at once, or-”
At this moment the king came up. Boges thought a moment, and then called in a loud voice to the whip-bearers on duty at the palace-gate, to take the astonished boy up.
”What is the matter here?” asked Cambyses.
”This fellow,” answered the eunuch, ”has had the audacity to make his way into the palace with a message from your consort Nitetis to Bartja.”
At sight of the king, the boy had fallen on his knees, touching the ground with his forehead.
Cambyses looked at him and turned deadly pale. Then, turning to the eunuch, he asked: ”What does the Egyptian Princess wish from my brother?”
”The boy declares that he has orders to give up what has been entrusted to him to no one but Bartja.” On hearing this the boy looked imploringly up at the king, and held out a little papyrus roll.
Cambyses s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hand, but the next moment stamped furiously on the ground at seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read.
He collected himself, however, and, with an awful look, asked the boy who had given him the letter. ”The Egyptian lady's waiting-woman Mandane,” he answered; ”the Magian's daughter.”
”For my brother Bartja?”
”She said I was to give the letter to the handsome prince, before the banquet, with a greeting from her mistress Nitetis, and I was to tell him ...”
Here the king stamped so furiously, that the boy was frightened and could only stammer: ”Before the banquet the prince was walking with you, so I could not speak to him, and now I am waiting for him here, for Mandane promised to give me a piece of gold if I did what she told me cleverly.”
”And that you have not done,” thundered the king, fancying himself shamefully deceived. ”No, indeed you have not. Here, guards, seize this fellow!”
The boy begged and prayed, but all in vain; the whip-bearers seized him quick as thought, and Cambyses, who went off at once to his own apartments, was soon out of reach of his whining entreaties for mercy.
Boges followed his master, rubbing his fat hands, and laughing quietly to himself.
The king's attendants began their work of disrobing him, but he told them angrily to leave him at once. As soon as they were gone, he called Boges and said in a low voice: ”From this time forward the hanging-gardens and the Egyptian are under your control. Watch her carefully! If a single human being or a message reaches her without my knowledge, your life will be the forfeit.”
”But if Ka.s.sandane or Atossa should send to her?”
”Turn the messengers away, and send word that every attempt to see or communicate with Nitetis will be regarded by me as a personal offence.”
”May I ask a favor for myself, O King?”
”The time is not well chosen for asking favors.”
”I feel ill. Permit some one else to take charge of the hanging-gardens for to-morrow only.”
”No!-now leave me.”
”I am in a burning fever and have lost consciousness three times during the day-if when I am in that state any one should...”
”But who could take your place?”
”The Lydian captain of the eunuchs, Kandaules. He is true as gold, and inflexibly severe. One day of rest would restore me to health. Have mercy, O King!”
”No one is so badly served as the king himself. Kandaules may take your place to-morrow, but give hum the strictest orders, and say that the slightest neglect will put his life in danger.-Now depart.”
”Yet one word, my King: to-morrow night the rare blue lily in the hanging-gardens will open. Hystaspes, Intaphernes, Gobyras, Croesus and Oropastes, the greatest horticulturists at your court, would very much like to see it. May they be allowed to visit the gardens for a few minutes? Kandaules shall see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.”
”Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he cares for his own life.-Go!”
Boges made a deep obeisance and left the king's apartment. He threw a few gold pieces to the slaves who bore the torches before him. He was so very happy. Every thing had succeeded beyond his expectations:-the fate of Nitetis was as good as decided, and he held the life of Kandaules, his hated colleague, in his own hands.
Cambyses spent the night in pacing up and down his apartment. By c.o.c.k-crow he had decided that Nitetis should be forced to confess her guilt, and then be sent into the great harem to wait on the concubines. Bartja, the destroyer of his happiness, should set off at once for Egypt, and on his return become the satrap of some distant provinces. He did not wish to incur the guilt of a brother's murder, but he knew his own temper too well not to fear that in a moment of sudden anger, he might kill one he hated so much, and therefore wished to remove him out of the reach of his pa.s.sion.
Two hours after the sun had risen, Cambyses was riding on his fiery steed, far in front of a Countless train of followers armed with s.h.i.+elds, swords, lances, bows and la.s.sos, in pursuit of the game which was to be found in the immense preserves near Babylon, and was to be started from its lair by more than a thousand dogs.
[The same immense trains of followers of course accompanied the kings on their hunting expeditions, as on their journeys. As the Persian n.o.bility were very fond of hunting, their boys were taught this sport at an early age. According to Strabo, kings themselves boasted of having been mighty hunters in the inscriptions on their tombs. A relief has been found in the ruins of Persepolis, on which the king is strangling a lion with his right arm, but this is supposed to have a historical, not a symbolical meaning. Similar representations occur on a.s.syrian monuments. Izdubar strangling a lion and fighting with a lion (relief at Khorsabad) is admirably copied in Delitzsch's edition of G. Smith's Chaldean Genesis.
Layard discovered some representations of hunting-scenes during his excavations; as, for instance, stags and wild boars among the reeds; and the Greeks often mention the immense troops of followers on horse and foot who attended the kings of Persia when they went hunting. According to Xenophon, Cyrop. I. 2. II. 4. every hunter was obliged to be armed with a bow and arrows, two lances, sword and s.h.i.+eld. In Firdusi's Book of Kings we read that the la.s.so was also a favorite weapon. Hawking was well known to the Persians more than 900 years ago. Book of Kabus XVIII. p. 495. The boomerang was used in catching birds as well by the Persians as by the ancient Egyptians and the present savage tribes of New Holland.]
CHAPTER II.
The hunt was over. Waggons full of game, amongst which were several enormous wild boars killed by the king's own hand, were driven home behind the sports men. At the palace-gates the latter dispersed to their several abodes, in order to exchange the simple Persian leather hunting-costume for the splendid Median court-dress.
In the course of the day's sport Cambyses had (with difficulty restraining his agitation) given his brother the seemingly kind order to start the next day for Egypt in order to fetch Sappho and accompany her to Persia. At the same time he a.s.signed him the revenues of Bactra, Rhagae and Sinope for the maintenance of his new household, and to his young wife, all the duties levied from her native town Phocaea, as pin-money.
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